A Music Video Masterpiece Reveals the True Power of Drone Videography

As keen and passionate filmmakers, we are always seeking for new opportunities and innovative techniques to produce better visuals by constantly pushing the creative boundaries of our imagination. The final goal always stays the same, though – creating unique imagery that has never been seen or created before, or simply something astounding. Often this elusive task may not be as easy as it might seem. Usually, it turns to be a lot more complicated and involves a lot of hard work than we initially might think of.

However, when it finally turns into something expiring and unique all those long hours and efforts always pay off in the end. Unambiguously, the last music video of the American alternative rock band OK Go proves the above statement. The video features the band members riding self-balancing unicycles and an army of dancers joining up motley umbrellas. The most attractive part here is how seamlessly the camera moves from ground level at the beginning of the video to birds-eye-view up in the sky in the end.

Again, this one shot video reveals the real power of the available drone (UAS) technology that gives limitless creative opportunities to filmmakers. Undoubtedly, executing such project requires a lot of preparation, complex choreography, highly skilled and experienced crew and a little bit of luck as well. Many things could go wrong during takes. But this is a great example how a couple of motorized unicycles, 1,500 dancers with party-coloured umbrellas and a flying drone shooting overhead could turn into a masterpiece music video. The full shot was done in one take that took more than 50 takes.

Furthermore, during the speed up portions of the video, the dancers listened to the song being played at half speed through enormous speakers, allowing them to perform the complicated choreography with great precision. The final shot, where the umbrellas are making up “pixels” of a giant human-powered display, was shot by the drone swinging up about half a mile into the air controlled manually via a GPS system.

During the filming of the video in Japan a couple of months ago, band frontman Damian Kulash shared a number of behind-the-scenes photos through his Instagram account:

Is it possible to produce such creative and impressive video as the “I Won’t Let You Down” with a lot less money? Frankly, I do believe it is. Sure, as a producer and filmmaker probably you won’t have the freedom to hire a 1,500 professional dancers, a big crew or rent the most expensive high-end camera and shoot on location somewhere in Japan, however you could be extremely productive if you work and plan smartly and wisely.

However, the point here is that no one could limit your creativity which is the most valuable and powerful skill you have. Use it reasonably and you will succeed. Indeed, the budget is very important aspect of the process, but it is not the one that matters at the most.